The main news was the replacement of the existing system for submitting applications for participation in the lottery. Starting this year, applications will not be accepted in paper form. Instead, applicants must fill out and send so-called electronic applications through a website specially created by the US State Department for these purposes on the Internet: www.dvlottery.state.gov. At the moment the site does not work - probably it will become available for viewing with the beginning of the registration period, i.e. November 1. It should also be noted that the duration of the registration period this year has been doubled - acceptance of electronic applications will end on December 30, 2003.
In addition, the new rules were an unpleasant surprise for natives of Russia (but not for citizens of the Russian Federation), who lost the right to participate in the lottery this year. According to the immigration and naturalization law, natives of countries with high levels of immigration are not allowed to participate in the lottery - countries from which more than 50,000 immigrants arrived over the past five years. This year, according to calculations by the US Department of Justice, Russia also entered the list of countries with a high level of immigration. Note that the law provides for a number of exceptions to the general rule, as a result of which some natives of Russia will still be able to fill out electronic applications.
According to the new rules, everyone wishing to participate in the DV-2005 lottery must enter standard personal information in the fields of the electronic application form. The list of items has practically not changed; the only additional requirement is to indicate the gender of the applicant and all members of his family. Since the electronic application is a form to be filled out on the website, no space for the applicant's signature will be provided. The State Department has completely abolished the traditional requirement for the applicant's handwritten signature on the application. Recall that during previous lotteries, a winner who failed to prove that he personally signed the application was denied an immigrant visa.
As before, the applicant must attach his own photograph, as well as photographs of the spouse and all children who have not reached the age of 21 and are not married. According to the rules, it is not necessary to send photographs only of those family members who have the status of permanent resident or US citizen. Since applications will be accepted exclusively in electronic form, the applicant must prepare digital photographs. The State Department allows you to take a photograph using digital cameras or scan a regular photograph. Photographs must also meet a number of specific requirements. In particular, each file containing an image of the applicant or a member of his family must be in jpeg format, and its size must not exceed 62,500 bytes. Image files will be attached to the electronic application before sending it. Applications with photographs that do not meet the established requirements will not be accepted, and the applicant will be immediately notified of this. Obviously, the application can be sent again, after first correcting the image file.
An applicant who sends an electronic application will be able to receive confirmation of its receipt by the State Department almost instantly. Recall that previously applications were sent exclusively by regular mail, as a result of which the applicant had no guarantee that it would be received by the consular center in the USA.
It should be noted that the discussion of the idea of abandoning paper applications and using electronic applications began last year, when information leaked to the press that millions of applications for participation in the lottery, some of which may contain information about terrorists, are destroyed annually after the end of the program. The idea of using the Internet to collect applications for the Green Card lottery was born from immigration lawyer George Kerenbauer, who independently developed and conducted open testing of a prototype of such a system, and also organized a special presentation of his creation to the US State Department.
Apparently, the State Department found the proposed arguments convincing. The introduction of a new electronic application collection system allows solving several problems. First, it will help minimize the likelihood of fraud when sending applications. As the State Department admitted, the process of finding duplicate applications sent by one applicant is not reliable enough. Now that each received application becomes part of a single applicant database, searching for duplicate applications will become much easier. From now on, checking the database by comparing the personal information of applicants or using software that recognizes their photographs can be done much faster, since there is no need to open submitted applications and manually enter the information contained in them into a computer. The State Department also expressed hope that the new system will be able to effectively prevent terrorists or wanted criminals from entering the United States.
In addition, the process of working with applications will become more efficient and economical, since the need to collect, sort, store and process millions of paper applications disappears. According to calculations made by the State Department, such measures will save $1 million annually.
As we can see, the State Department believes that the advantages of the new application collection system, dictated by security and economy considerations, outweigh potential problems, the main of which may be the lack of resources needed to submit applications in underdeveloped countries. As is known, the Green Card lottery is most popular among natives of countries with unstable economic or political situations. Understanding that access to computers or the Internet in such countries may be difficult, the State Department called on applicants to use any resources both in their country of residence and abroad, including services of Internet cafes and hosting of Internet providers. According to the rules of the DV-2005 lottery, an applicant has the right to authorize third parties to prepare and send an application on his behalf. For example, an applicant can send the old, paper version of the application to his relatives living abroad, who, in turn, can use the received data and photograph to prepare and send an electronic application.
Moreover, even if one has a computer with Internet access, not everyone will be able to prepare their digital photograph in accordance with the new requirements. Consequently, it can be assumed that with the adoption of the new rules, the role of agencies offering services for sending applications to participate in the lottery will significantly increase. The State Department itself assumes that competition among such agencies will be able to keep the cost of sending electronic applications at an acceptable level.
It remains to add that, despite the introduction of the electronic application collection system, the procedure for notifying winners will apparently remain the same. According to the State Department, envelopes with notification of winning will be sent by regular mail from May to July of next year. Applicants who did not win the lottery will not be notified, since electronic notification of applicants about the fate of their applications is not yet provided.
Readers of "Zagranitsa" will be able to familiarize themselves with the full text of the DV-2005 lottery rules in one of the upcoming issues of the newspaper. In addition, with the start of the registration period of the DV-2005 lottery, we will publish a detailed report on the practice of filling out and sending electronic applications.
Alexander DEMCHENKO,
Chicago, USA.
Specially for "Zagranitsa"